THEATER TALK to Welcome Gabriel Byrne, Robin Wagner & David Rockwell This Weekend

The newest edition of THEATER TALK presents an interview with actor Gabriel Byrne, TONY nominee for Best Actor in A Play for his powerful performance as the alcoholic James Tyrone in the Roundabout Theatre revival of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night at the American Airlines Theatre. Also we talk to famed scenic designers Robin Wagner (A Chorus Line, Dreamgirls, 42nd Street, The Producers) and David Rockwell (Kinky Boots, Hairspray) - the former the winner of three TONY Awards, the latter nominated for his design of this season's Roundabout revival of She Loves Me.

Co-hosts Michael Riedel of the New York Post and Susan Haskins discuss with Byrne how O'Neill never intended for his greatest play to be produced, because he believed he betrayed his own family in depicting the alcoholism, venereal disease and morphine addiction that haunts the play's Tyrone family. They also discuss the O'Neill home - Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut - where the play is set, a place Byrne describes as "claustrophobic" and lacking aesthetic beauty-"a house built by a miser."

In contrast, designers Wagner and Rockwell are noted for their aesthetics. "Robin's work changed my life," says Rockwell, citing the Public Theatre production of A Chorus Line in 1975 as his first exposure to Wagner's genius. Ironically, both men designed the musical version of On the Twentieth Century - Wagner, the original in 1979, and Rockwell, the revival in 2015. And they discuss one of the oldest scenic devices ever invented - the three-sided column called a periactoid - which Wagner used to stunning effect in A Chorus Line.

This latest edition of THEATER TALK premieres in the New York metropolitan area on Thirteen/PBS, Friday, June 3 (2016) at 1:30 AM (early Saturday) and Sunday, June 5 at 11:30 AM. It re-airs on CUNY TV* Saturday 6/4 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 6/5 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 6/6 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM; as well as on WLIW/21 on Monday 6/6 at 5:30 PM - a total of 8 showings this week.

THEATER TALK is jointly produced by the not-for-profits Theater Talk Productions and CUNY TV. The program is taped in the Himan Brown TV and Radio Studios at The City University of New York (CUNY) TV in Manhattan, and is distributed to 100+ participating public television stations nationwide. THEATER TALK is made possible in part by The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The CUNY TV Foundation, and The Friends of THEATER TALK.

*CUNY TV, the City University of New York television station, is broadcast in the New York metropolitan area on digital Ch. 25.3 and cablecast in the city's five boroughs on Ch. 75 (Time Warner and Optimum Brooklyn), Ch. 77 (RCN), and Ch. 30 (Verizon FiOS). The show is available online anytime at www.cuny.tv and www.theatertalk.org and via iTunes podcasts.

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